A fresh air system is used to supply an internal combustion engine or its cylinders with fresh air. In order to reduce fuel consumption and emissions of pollutants, it is customary to feed combustion gases back to the fresh air system, which are introduced into the fresh air system via a corresponding exhaust gas recirculation inlet. It is difficult to feed the desired amount of exhaust gas back into the fresh air system during certain operating states of the internal combustion engine owing to the prevailing pressure conditions. To avoid for example an expensive pump in an exhaust gas recirculation line, it is possible in principle to arranged a valve member upstream of the exhaust gas recirculation inlet in the fresh air system, with the aid of which valve member a cross section through which fluid can flow of the fresh air system can be controlled. By briefly reducing the cross section through which fluid can flow, a load alternation process of the pressure can be reduced in the region of the exhaust gas recirculation inlet during the filling phase, which facilitates the introduction of the recirculated exhaust gas. A desired exhaust gas recirculation rate can be set in particular by targeted actuation of the valve member.